


Out of the Cold

by stellarel



Series: Dreams and Disasters [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarel/pseuds/stellarel
Summary: A conversation between the Doctor and Madge Arwell. (A Dreams and Disasters Christmas special!)
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Series: Dreams and Disasters [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075289
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Out of the Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This is an outtake of my fic Christmas Past. It's all a bit wibbly wobbly - that fic happens in the Dreams and Disasters universe, but works as a standalone, and THIS fic is an outtake of THAT fic, just a Dreams and Disasters flavored slice of it.

"So, no companion this time?" Madge asks, in a way that sounds casual but has a very careful edge to it. Like someone skating on thin ice. The Doctor shifts her eyes away, blows the steam away from her mug.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembers a saying about how holding warm things is good for calming one's nerves. This seemed to apply to Time Lord physiology, too, and briefly she was thankful for this.

"Ah, no, no companion this time. Just me."

"Caretaker?" Madge asks, her voice suddenly more serious.

"You didn't leave her behind, did you? Off on some planet, thinking you're dead?" She asks, only half joking.

"No, no-" The Doctor hurries to correct her, "-nothing like that. She's just off doing her own thing. Thought it would be best if I came alone."

"You could've brought her. No need in you traveling alone - and like I said, the more the merrier."

The Doctor hums, acknowledging the sentiment, but not quite believing in it. A moment passes in the silent, mostly-dark room.

"Caretaker?"

"Hm?"

"You told me once you can't feel things the way I do. The way _we_ do."

This makes the Doctor's hearts ache with the memory of it - she remembered it, of course, the whole ordeal with the forest and the flying and the acid rain - and that particular line felt painfully familiar, too, and it made her feel like someone was emptying out all her bone marrow.

She had really felt it, then, really believed it. She wasn't sure what she believed now, but she still remembered believing that, she still remembered being that person, and it _hurt_. 

It made her feel like she was on thin ice, waiting for it to crack, knowing what the ice cold water underneath would feel like.

"I don't believe that's true." Madge continues, her voice light and heavy at the same time, somehow. 

The Doctor looks up at her, trying not to let all the tiredness and the age and the pain show in her eyes.

"I don't." Madge repeats. "With the way you act around her, the way you look at each other - I think you're capable of feeling as deeply as any of us. Maybe even more so. You just have to let yourself feel it."

She blinks, and the thoughts tick away in the Doctor's head one by one, crashing into each other along the way.

 _Let_ herself feel it?

She was sure Madge couldn't possibly know what she was talking about.

The _it_ in question being the Doctor's feelings - centuries of pain and hurt and desperation, love and hope and grasping at kindness every chance she got, trying her best to counter away all the terrible things - it was all too much.

 _She_ was too much. She was a universe in a person-shaped cloak, just trying to get through the muddy waters of the world, hoping to leave it a little better than she found it. 

There was so much. And it scared her. How could any human take it?

To be loved by the Doctor was to be in danger. This seemed to be a fact.

How could she feel _that_ and be okay with it? How could she love someone and not let it burn them? How could she love someone and not let it burn _her_?

It hurt. It made her feel like someone had taken all her bones and sanded them down, so that now she felt _everything,_ like a raw nerve. 

Could her hearts take it? 

Could her head?

Would the universe fall if the Doctor stopped carrying the weight of it on her shoulders?

She can feel her heartbeats echo in her ears, in an annoyingly familiar rhythm.

The Doctor lets out a breath and all these different thoughts merge into one;

_Is it worth it, feeling all this?_

It feels like a silly question.

It doesn't really even feel like a question, because she can feel the answer in the way her chest feels a little bit lighter, in the way her feet feel a little more steady, in the way her bed is warm every morning and in the way the TARDIS is never that quiet, anymore. In the way she has a hand to hold, now, and it fits perfectly in her own. She can feel it in the way her her hearts feel like sunlight now.

Madge smiles like she knows exactly what the Doctor is thinking. 


End file.
